2026 PDC WC Day 19 Preview

We are now into the penultimate day of the PDC World Championship. Luke Littler, Ryan Searle, Gary Anderson and Gian Van Veen made it through the quarter finals, who will be playing in tomorrow night’s final? James Punt’s 2026 PDC WC Day 19 previews and tips are below.

Quarter Final Reflections

You rarely see four one sided quarter finals as we had yesterday, but the business end of these big tournaments can often be a bit of an anti-climax. At least Gian van Veen won his quarter of the draw to bring some financial relief to the day.

Our six bets on the quarter finals yielded just one winner and a 2.77 point loss. That takes the tournament tally to -5.07 points. Van Veen’s quarter win means the ante post bets are now +1.00 point and we have a further point on Van Veen to face Littler in the final @ 11.00.

We now move onto the semi-finals. These are best of 11 sets matches. The recent trend has been for these matches to be as uncompetitive as yesterday’s quarter finals. Luke Littler has played in the semi-finals for the last two years and beat Cross 6-2 and Bunting 6-1 last year.

Last year both semis ended 6-1, in 2024, it was 6-0 and 6-2, as it was in 2023. Not exactly riveting stuff. Going back over the last twenty semi-finals and things were a bit better and overall, the most common score line was 6-3 at 35%, 6-1 was 20%, 6-2 15%, 6-0 15%, 6-4 10% and 6-5 just once. The higher ranked player has won 75% of the semi-finals.

Luke Littler vs. Ryan Searle

There is no doubting who is the higher ranked player in this one. Luke Littler is the undisputed World Number 1 in whatever way you want to rank it. Prime Taylor and MVG rolled into one. He has won his last eighteen matches in a row, has a tournament average of 102.48, a checkout rate of 56% and is hitting 180s @ 0.52 per legs. All well above his 12-month stats.

Ryan Searle is the 20th seed and has won seven of his last ten matches. His tournament average is 97.23, his checkout rate 53% and his 180s per leg rate is 0.26. All very good and he is playing at the top of his game, maybe a little low on the 180s but not by much.

Littler Unbeaten v Searle

Their H2H record is 5-0 to Littler. They first met in the final of PC1 in 2024. That was Littler’s first event as a tour card holder. He won it 8-7. He was off and running. We should remember that Searle is mustard in the early season Players Championship events and he averaged 111.71 in that match, hit six 180s and was 47% on his doubles, and he lost.

Since that explosive start to Littler’s career, they have met a further four times and the results were 6-2, 6-3, 10-2 and 6-3. Their only match on TV was at this year’s World Matchplay, Littler winning 10-2, averaging 108.92. Their last match in 2025 was on the Euro Tour and Littler averaged 110.33, Searle 104.22, and Littler won 6-3.

Littler likes playing Searle. It brings out the best in him. Pray for Heavy Metal.

Littler Fav

Littler is the 1.10 favourite, Searle 9.00. That might be a touch generous about Littler’s chances. This may be another very one-sided semi-final and the question is more about the margin of victory.

Last night Littler gave Ratajski quite a few chances to win a set, but the Pole was so fried by playing Littler, he just couldn’t take them. It was like, Littler was happy to let Ratajski get a set. He was just toying with him. Searle is likely to be a bit better than Ratajski, and while the Pole averaged 96.75, his checkout rate was just 22%.

It would be no surprise to see Searle get something on the scoreboard. He is playing well enough and Littler can have short periods when his mind wanders. Searle should be good enough take advantage when that happens, but he is likely to spend most of the match in the trenches, taking heavy fire.

Littler is yet to lose more than two sets in this year’s championship matches. Indeed, he only lost two in total, both to Rob Cross when he let the crowd get to him. Littler has not lost more than two sets in his two semi-finals here. There is one bet that looks backable.

2026 PDC WC Day 19 Tip: 2 points Luke Littler to win -3.5 sets @ 1.70 with Unibet

Gary Anderson vs. Gian Van Veen

Anderson came into this as the 14th seed, Van Veen 10th. The Flying Scotsman has won seven of his last ten matches, has a tournament average of 100.11, is checking out at 39% and hitting 180s at 0.38per leg. Andrson has played in no less than seven World Championship semi-finals, of which he has won five, but he has lost two of his last three.

Van Veen has won eight of his last ten matches, has a tournament average of 101.80, a checkout rate of 50% and his 180 per leg rate is 0.38. All very good, all very close to Anderson’s game, with the exception of the checkout rate. Anderson was 45% in yesterday’s 5-2 win over Justin Hood. That was the first time in the Championship he got it above 40%. Is it doubles that will decide the match?

H2H

Their H2H record is 4-1 to Anderson. They have only played on TV once, in last year’s Grand Slam quarter final, which Anderson won 16-14. Their last match was a 7-4 win for Van Veen in a Players Championship semi-final in September. Since then, Van Veen has won his first Major Championship and is now the provisional world number three.

So long as Littler can beat Searle, we are effectively getting 11.00 on Van Veen winning the match. Plan A is to watch Littler’s match and consider a hedge.

Van Veen is the 1.53 favourite, Anderson 2.70. Given how both have been playing so far, the value lies with Anderson, but Van Veen deserves favouritism. Van Veen is in his first World Championship semi-final, but he arrived at the top table when he won the European Championship. He is a very capable and confident player these days.

Karma Tokens

I remember saying, after Van Veen had lost a big match earlier in the year, the semi-final of the Swiss Darts Trophy rings a bell, that Van Veen was saving up a lot of Karma tokens.

He has had a season or two of running into players producing their very best performances against him. Those defeats might have downed lesser players, but Van Veen just kept on coming. He just got better, improved and what goes around comes around. He is spending those tokens. But has he any left?

Probably. He hasn’t needed any luck to get this far, he has dropped a set in every match, but never looked in any real bother. He could have gone 0-2 against Soutar in round two, but he didn’t and he shifted the gears and won 3-1, averaging 108.28. Other than that, he has just taken care of business.

Hedge

For hedging purposes, Anderson is a no brainer at odds of 2.70, so long as Littler has won the other semi-final.

As for any other bets, that is harder. The trend in recent semi-finals is for one sided matches. We could consider Van Veen to continue his 100% record of losing one set per match and win 6-1 at odds of 10.00. Anderson lost 1-6 to MVG in the 2019 semi-final.

The way both have been playing suggests that it should be a closer match than that, but we haven’t seen many close semi-finals in the last three years. Anderson lost 4-6 to Peter Wright in his last semi-final match in the 2022 Championship, the last year we saw any semi-final going over eight sets.

These bets may look like a dog’s dinner, but they make some sense to me.

2026 PDC WC Day 19 Tip: 1.5 points Anderson to win @ 2.70 with Bresbet (or best price) subject to Littler winning the first semi-final. If not, no bet

2026 PDC WC Day 19 Tip: 0.5 point Gian van Veen to win 6-1 @ 10.00 with Paddy Power, Skybet

2026 PDC WC Day 19 Tip: 0.5 point Gian Van Veen to win 6-4 @ 6.50 generally available

-JamesPunt